


Apex Predators

by Goldmonger



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2020 Supernatural Shutdown Bingo, Animal Transformation, Crack Treated Seriously, Family Bonding, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Mini Casefic, Sharing a Bed, Team Free Will 2.0 (Supernatural), Team as Family, like all the fluff, this got away from me tbh, this is the fluffiest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23846206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldmonger/pseuds/Goldmonger
Summary: Sam, Dean, Castiel and Jack get on the wrong side of a druid, then a cop, then some animal rights activists.A.K.A. Sam tries to keep some petting zoo rejects out of trouble for a whole day. It's predictably difficult.
Relationships: Castiel & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Jack Kline & Sam Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 75





	Apex Predators

**Author's Note:**

> *This was supposed to be 2000 words but???? I have no self control
> 
> *Also I wanted Sam to be hugged and SO HE SHALL BE

The druid’s skinny arm vanishes within his grip, and his fist closes on air, her terrified upturned face branding his retinas like the afterimage of the sun.

“Shit,” Sam says eloquently, and turns to bray to Dean about the escaped suspect; obviously pouncing on her while the others created a distraction hadn’t worked as well as they’d planned. 

He finds more absence.

“Dean?” He steps away from the hollow of the oak tree and back into the small clearing, scanning it for all of his fellow hunters. “Cas? Jack? Where are you guys?”

He has his phone out and is swiping for Dean’s name when a resonant bark echoes into the tree canopies like a sonic boom. He looks up, and is just in time to receive a mouthful of black fur before he’s bowled over into the dirt.

He splutters, pushing back against the mysteriously hairy and extremely heavy onslaught, and finds himself face to face with a dripping snout and two sorrowful canine eyes. The dog, he can see it is now, is jet black, with a white belly and chestnut-brown paws. It has flopping ears, an overlong tongue that droops near Sam’s nose, and it weighs in at about half the size of a grizzly bear. He knows this intimately, because the majority of that weight is perched on his chest.

The dog barks at him, almost irritably.

“Get off, you big lug,” he complains, shoving it back enough that he can sit up. “Where the hell did you come from?”

The dog turns its head towards the oak tree, which is still faintly glowing from the druid’s latent magic, and deliberately back to Sam. It then nudges the phone on the ground, which is blaring Dean’s name and number on its screen, awaiting confirmation to place a call.

“No,” says Sam, as something pale and unidentifiable flickers in his periphery. “No, no, no, she can’t have – _Dean?_ ”

The dog barks jubilantly and leaps back on top of him, licking every inch of his face he can reach.

“Oh for the love of – knock it off, Dean, that is so gross –,”

Dean whines, retreating slightly, and paws vigorously at the ground. Sam knows his brother well enough to be able to tell when he’s frustrated beyond belief, even when he’s deprived of bipedalism. He swipes a layer of drool off his cheek.

“Can’t help it, huh? You drank the Clifford Kool-Aid?”

Dean growls menacingly, just as a white streak flits between them and winds around Sam’s legs. He looks down, dread building as he notes the luxurious coat, swishing tail and ice-blue eyes of a Persian cat.

“I’m too afraid to ask,” says Sam, and Dean barks again. “But if she changed Dean – you were all together, so –,”

The cat mewls gravely, a little too much bass in its pitch to pass as a regular animal. He braces himself. “Cas?”

The cat mewls again, even lower.

“Agh, _fuck_ ,” Sam whispers, reaching out to him. Castiel rubs his head along Sam’s palm obligingly, somehow managing to be awkward while doing it. Sam supposes a cat is as bizarre a vessel to him as a human, generally speaking.

“Okay,” he says, panic swirling south of his stomach. “Okay, this is fine, we can deal with this. Now all we need is – _shit!_ ”

He shoots ramrod straight as a distinctly foreign sensation skitters up his pant leg, needle-like jolts of pain laddering up his calf, knee, and thigh, all the way up to his hip, where it is abruptly replaced by a soft pressure. He freezes, momentarily petrified, and faintly investigates the patch of denim over his jeans pocket. A tiny lump judders there, rendered practically immobile despite its best efforts.

Castiel bats at his shin impatiently, and he shakes himself. No time to wuss out right now. He pulls out his waistband slightly, and a ball of sandy-hued fur greets him, miniature claws plunged into the divot by his hipbone in order to keep itself aloft. A pair of round ears rise slowly, then a pair of beady black eyes.

“I’m going insane, here,” explains Sam, “but – but is that you, Jack?”

The ball, which is now a mouse, squeaks an enthusiastic affirmative. Sam slaps a hand to his forehead, spiralling already. He knows, with the useless gift of hindsight, that they should have done more research on this missing persons case before going in fully loaded. Hikers and development planners disappearing into a Pennsylvania woodland should have been a cause for caution, not presumption. The druids the locals had prattled about are not, in fact _,_ a mythical bunch of stoned hippies, if the single member of their tribe they’ve encountered is anything to go by. He’ll be sure to yell that reminder at Dean when his human ears can appreciate it, he thinks, a little wildly.

“Okay.” He shakes himself back to rationality. This is certainly not the worst conundrum they’ve had to confront, not even this year. “Okay,” he repeats, and scoops up Jack, wincing as the claws retract from his flesh. The mouse wobbles in the hollow of his hand, his tail erect as he subtly surveys the landscape from his new height. He keeps wobbling.

“This is fixable,” Sam informs the dog, then the cat, both of them training glares on him that are startlingly reminiscent of their former selves. “Now we know for sure what happened to those people that disappeared! And they didn’t have the resources that we do, right?”

The dog growls again, sitting on his haunches with a puff of dust.

“Right. So we’re going to delve into the lore of this area, see what we can see about this – this culture. We’ll sort this out. We will.”

He starts for the break in the trees they’d come through, then swears colourfully and circles back to the front of the oak tree. Heaped haphazardly by the protruding roots are three distinct piles of clothes.

“Small favours,” grumbles Sam, digging one-handed through Dean’s jeans for the car keys, then tossing the garment over his shoulder. A trenchcoat, all the accoutrements of a suit, a hoodie, two jackets, two flannels, two t-shirts and a second pair of jeans join them. The mouse squeaks in what Sam hopes is gratitude.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” he mutters, cupping the mouse close to his chest. He takes one last look back in the oak tree, which has dulled from the brief glow of magic, and finds only a few Celtic runes carved into the bole’s interior. He takes a few photos, just in case, but doesn’t get too excited by his discovery. Druidic power is mostly foreign territory for him; if he’s going to counter the transformation, he thinks he might need to get creative.

Dean barks at him, and he emerges from the tree with Jack wriggling against his abdomen. “What?”

Dean paces impatiently back and forth before the exit from the clearing, while Castiel waits on a nearby boulder, still but for the vacillating bottlebrush tail. The urging for him to _get a move on_ couldn’t have been more apparent if they’d shouted it.

“This is going to be fun,” he says grimly, as Jack squeaks.

*

Dean fills up the entire right side of the car’s front compartment, his tail smacking Sam’s face when he tries to lie down on the seat.

“Dean, I have to drive. Quit it.”

He huffs, but Sam senses amusement, and is proven right when the wagging begins again in earnest. He spits out a few dark hairs and checks in the rear view mirror, where Castiel is sitting primly, watching the world rush by outside the window. He tilts his chin to his lapel pocket. “All good, Jack?”

The mouse pokes his head out to bump the edge of Sam’s jaw, and stays to presumably gape at the gigantic flowing road in front of them. Sam considers it a good sign that their personalities are all somewhat intact, even if some of them are being extremely annoying about it. He pins Dean’s jouncing tail under his arm and glowers out the windscreen.

The motel is only a few miles from the forest and just within the town limits. Sam pulls into the parking lot just before noon and keeps his eyes peeled for other patrons, knowing that a single glimpse of his menagerie is going to have them out on their asses in no time. He watches a single, slightly tottering individual bumble his way into his room, then turns to Dean.

“We’re going to move now. No. Barking. Do you understand? I can’t research properly out of this car.”

Dean huffs again, but it seems to be in acknowledgement. Sam nods to Castiel. “Same to you. No noise, all right?”

Castiel mewls quietly, blinking massive, eerily blue eyes.

“Fantastic.” He ushers them both out his side of the car, then heads for their motel room door, unlocking it while keeping vigilant for onlookers. Dean’s head is perked as he stands sentry, and Castiel twines nervously between his ankles. The sight would be hilarious if the distant but still present possibility of it being permanent didn’t hover, like a bad smell.

Dean sniffs the air suspiciously.

Okay, so it’s kind of funny.

“Everyone in.” He motions them inside the room and secures it behind them, flicking on lights and trying not to grin at the way Dean leaps onto his bed. He takes Jack out of his pocket and searches for a place to put him that won’t result in a squelchy mess with one errant step. He grimaces at the thought, all jocularity draining from him in a heartbeat.

Jack decides for him, scrabbling at his hand when he tries to leave him on the desk. Sam halts and lets him run up his arm to his shoulder, where he settles comfortably.

“Nice to have you aboard,” he says, and Jack titters in his ear. He sits down at the round little table and opens his laptop, pulling up all the formerly closed tabs on naturalistic magic as well as the articles that had drawn them there in the first place. The disappearances only go back a few months, but they’re centred on Moshannon State Forest. No bodies have ever been found, and now Sam knows why. There hadn’t been any dark sacrifices or bloody rituals conducted, no matter what the community whispered to them on their first walkabout of the place. Just a bunch of damn animals running around.

At least they’d gotten the suspected culprits right.

“The one we found isn’t killing anyone,” he says, mostly to himself, as Jack scratches a hole in his shirt. “Maybe we can reason with her. We just need to get her attention – maybe in a way that isn’t so…” He glances at Dean, who’s in the process of licking an area that really shouldn’t be exposed.

“Obnoxious,” he finishes dryly, and starts typing, seeking out less biased information on druidic culture as a whole. The internet is sprawling, but there has to be some underlying creed or even a weakness that has basis in truth.

Hours pass as he researches, and the others get antsy. Castiel sits behind the laptop screen and stares over it at him until he tactfully removes him to the bed. Dean jumps and places his front paws on Sam’s back over the chair, pushing off him repeatedly, like a kid requesting playtime. He even has the audacity to growl when Sam tries to knock him away.

“I’m working here, Dean, on changing you back into your idiot self! What is it?”

Dean whines, and retrieves an empty packet of beef jerky from his duffle bag, laying it in Sam’s lap. Castiel bounds over to sniff it with interest.

“You’re hungry?”

The look Dean gives him practically radiates the phrase _no shit_ , so he gets to his feet and stretches, reaching up at the last minute to steady Jack.

“I hope you guys won’t vomit up your insides if I order in?”

They don’t, which Sam considers a small miracle. Half an hour later and Dean is wolfing down pizza without chewing, Castiel picking politely at slivers of ham and pepperoni. Sam combs through the town library’s online index while intermittently holding up blueberries and pumpkin seeds to Jack, eating whatever he refuses. He can’t help wondering if this is what it’s like to have kids.

Then Dean sits on Castiel when he tries for Dean’s leftovers, and he thinks that he’s being uncharitable to children everywhere.

“Oi. That’s enough.”

He gets his arms around Dean and lifts – or drags – him off of Castiel, who hisses indignantly and scatters to Sam’s bed. Dean huffs that strange laughter again, deep in his cavernous canine chest.

“You guys need to behave, all right?” He glances to his laptop, replete with a dozen dead ends. “I’m not getting the info I need from here, so I’m going to dig for older records at the library.” He exhales sharply. “You guys are going to stay here, and you’re going to stay quiet. Got it?”

Dean whines instantly, jumping up again, his paws on Sam’s shoulders this time. He’s almost of a height with human Dean, Sam realises, and is about as bossy, as he attempts to push him away from the door.

“I need to go so I can turn you back, all right? It’s important.”

Dean simpers miserably, and sloppily licks his face.

“That is so, so weird. Okay. Down you get.” He takes Dean’s paws and lowers them to the floor, rubbing his fluffy head as an afterthought. Castiel watches silently from across the room.

“Stay out of sight, Cas,” he orders. “And don’t let him rile you up.” Castiel’s tail flicks behind him like a metronome, but he doesn’t seem too perturbed. Sam takes that as a win, and goes about gathering his wallet and keys along with the pre-emptive file on the druids. Jack squeaks apprehensively from his shoulder.

“You’re coming with me, buddy. I think I can keep you out of sight.”

He’s also only mostly certain that Castiel’s gaze is tracking the mouse up and down Sam’s arm out of concern. He doesn’t want to test that theory, though. Just in case.

Dean is slumped on the floor by the table, and keens quietly when Sam bends to scratch behind his ears one last time. He knows it’s ridiculous to feel guilty, and yet he wavers by the door, the baleful resentment of his big dumb brother making him hesitate. Jack’s claws worry at his neck and he closes it. Eventually.

The library is still bustling at four o’clock, students and kids and parents milling about every level. He keeps Jack buried in his lapel pocket, and enquires about old records of town residents. The librarian points him to a section by county history, where most of the books are so ancient and delicate that they can’t be taken out of the building.

Jack darts up his sleeve and down his shirt as he hefts books and Xeroxes onto a private desk, exploring Sam’s plaid in lieu of the busy library. Sam supposes he should be grateful for the cooperation, but mostly it just tickles.

“Jack,” he murmurs. “Ease up.”

He locates a lump somewhere by his ribs and traps it there under his hand. Jack emits a pitiful cheep that attracts the confusion of a sunken-eyed college student, and he waves at her, hunching slightly. It’s only after he sits that he reaches under his shirt to pull him out.

“You need to chill,” he says out of the corner of his mouth. “I know this is bizarre for you, but I need peace and quiet, okay?”

Jack twitches his tiny pink nose, then rushes up his sleeve again. Sam is about to groan under his breath, something he’s gotten quite good at over the years, when Jack’s piercing footfalls take him all the way to Sam’s collar, behind which he expertly hides. Sam is moderately impressed.

“Thanks,” he says softly, scratching at his head with a single finger. Jack nibbles at it good-naturedly, then moves onto buttons while Sam concentrates on the research.

The local academia describes a ‘cult’ that had moved to the outskirts of the Moshannon forest sometime in the mid-1800s, bringing with them strange behaviour that many claimed corrupted the flora and fauna of the area: they made trees walk under moonlight, allowed flowers to grow three storeys, and forced men’s souls into animal bodies. This last part sparks his excitement, and he spends a long while skimming over tomes with excerpts in unreadable glyphs and Old Gaelic, even flipping through photographs of Ogham inscriptions from fifth century Ireland. None of them come close to matching the pictures of the runes on his phone, and he doesn’t think he’s going to make a breakthrough without years of intensive study, or tracking down one of the few scholars on the topic of Celtic diaspora in the American Northeast.

He also has the niggling suspicion that he’s coming at this problem all wrong. Druidic magic is not learned witchcraft or bestowed by a demon, it’s innate. He can’t change Dean, Jack or Castiel back even if he manages to find a counteractive spell, because he doesn’t have the ability to channel it.

Jack claws at his earlobe, and he ignores him, planting his face in his hands. He only knows of one handy druid, and she had been little more than a scared kid on her own. He doesn’t know if he should return to the forest and attack her, threaten her, or seek out her elders. Her only weakness seems to be her environment, judging by her fierce protection of it. Is he supposed to start a fire in the underbrush? Hold a racoon hostage?

“Like I need more bad karma,” he mumbles, as Jack claws at him again, this time more insistently, and leaving a thin gouge on his jaw this time.

“Shit, Jack!” he hisses, shying yet again from his frowning neighbours. “ _What?_ ”

Jack skitters down his sleeve and towards the edge of the desk, straining over the divide between its edge and the window sill. Sam observes him, utterly confounded, until he looks automatically through the window and down to ground level, where he sees a giant black dog on the library lawn snapping at a cop and half a dozen spectators.

“Oh god,” he says, loudly, and doesn’t stop to apologise, snatching up Jack and taking off at a sprint.

He bursts out the double front doors like a bat – or soul – out of hell, his stomach in a knot. Jack wheezes ineffectually in his fist, and he guiltily shoves him in his pocket before skidding to a stop in front of his barking brother. The cop’s hand, he notes, is on his holster, and the crowd is thickening.

“That’s my br – dog, that’s my dog, I’m sorry,” he gasps, backing up until the backs of his legs run into Dean. His heart jackrabbits like it’s trying to escape. “He’s not aggressive, just lost.”

The cop is a paunchy man with varicose veins, and he seems to hate people as much as dogs, because he storms up and jabs a finger in Sam’s face as soon as he finishes his last sentence.

“This _creature_ ,” he declares, “has been bothering innocent citizens. It stole food from a hotdog cart. It befouled the community park, several times. It took the ice cream out of a child’s hands, for God’s sake!”

Sam swivels to where Dean is crouched, wagging his tail in a decent impression of wholesome innocence.

“A kid’s ice cream, Dean,” he grits out. “Seriously?”

Dean huffs, his tongue lolling out, and Sam knows he’s proud of himself.

“Sir? Your animal? There will be fines for this kind of irresponsible pet ownership.”

The cop is still scowling, and he whips out a pen and notepad. “Or we can have it placed in the pound.”

Sam almost lets him go ahead, but that would probably include an even more incriminating paper trail, and Dean would probably start a prison riot in the damn thing anyway. He wearily rattles off his fake name and fake address, giving the number to one of their burner phones for any follow ups. Throughout the entire exchange, Dean makes a show of peeing on the front left tyre of the cop’s car, making eerie eye contact with him the entire time. When he finally lets them go, he’s beet-red and inchoate with rage, and Sam is quick to wind his fingers in Dean’s fur, yanking him down the street and directly into the Impala.

“Real nice, Dean,” he says viciously, patting his pectoral to ensure Jack is still with them. He’s quivering, but alive, so he decides to focus on the smug bear-sized buffoon in the passenger seat for the time being. “You broke out of the motel to get picked up by the police? Did the druid transform you into a dog or a moron?”

Dean barks joyously and swipes roughly at his temple with an enormous paw, like he’s trying to tousle his hair. Sam swats him away, too annoyed about his abandoned findings in the library to indulge him.

“Dean, stop it! Why did you leave?”

Dean whines, and butts his head against Sam’s this time.

“Dude.” He doesn’t even try to hide his grin as comprehension dawns. “Did you actually miss me?”

Dean barks in his face and starts pacing up and down the seat – or spinning around on it, really, since he takes up so much room. Sam thinks it counts as one of his brother’s deflections, in any case. He rolls his eyes, and is about to issue another lockdown order while he retrieves his files when he notices a conspicuously cat-shaped gap in their motley assembly.

“Dean,” he says, tamping down his panic, “Dean, where’s Cas?”

Dean pauses his victory lap to bound over to Sam and bark repeatedly, almost excitedly. He noses at the keys in Sam’s hand, then the empty ignition, and barks again.

“Where am I going?” he asks wildly, but Dean just barks, triumphant, his tail thumping off the upholstery. Sam runs his fingers through his hair, at a loss, and wonders how much credibility he stands to lose by calling up Garth to babysit while he actually works their case. It would be easier to trap or fight a magic-user if he didn’t have to corral a zoo, though the idea of letting all of them out of his sight at once makes him nauseous. He envisions nightmarish scenarios without his oversight: Jack being skewered by a bird of prey, Castiel prancing right onto a highway, and Dean going all Dodger from _Oliver and Company_ on some unsuspecting neighbourhood. All equally horrifying.

Besides, Garth is out of the game. Both he and Dean had wanted to respect that.

He deliberates as the seconds tick by, absently stroking Jack’s head all the while. He receives a commiserating nibble for his trouble.

“I’m going back to the motel,” he finally says to Dean, for a lack of a better idea, and is rewarded with yet another lick. He grimaces. “That better mean he’s there waiting for us, Dean, I swear –,”

Dean jumps and presses his paws to the horn, startling a number of pedestrians that squint irritably at Sam through the glare of the windshield. One gives him the finger.

“Jesus, Dean! I’m going, I’m going.” He raises a contrite hand to his jury as he pulls away, heaving Dean back to the passenger side as he does so. Dean then emits a litany of whimpers until he rolls down the window, sticking his head out to pant into the rush of wind. At least it’s not as unnerving as when he did it as a human, Sam reflects.

Dean doesn’t make another sound until they careen into the motel parking lot, at which point he starts scrabbling at the door and barking up a storm. Sam parks the car haphazardly just inside the entrance, and has barely opened his own door before Dean is barrelling over and past him, crushing the breath from his lungs. Jack makes a strangled noise from his pocket, slightly flattened.

He follows Dean out of the motel boundaries and halfway down the street, protestations bubbling to the surface just as a distinct _meowing_ reaches him. He halts by a decorative silver birch tree, right by the edge of the sidewalk, and backs up a little. Dean is sitting at its foot, tail sweeping dust and bracken on the concrete from side to side. Sam gets to the end of his rope for the tenth time that day. Who knew he had so much rope? Certainly not him.

He looks up, and is met with a pair of wide, despairing eyes, fifteen feet up on a thin tree bough. Castiel mewls pathetically down at him and Dean runs in ecstatic circles around his legs.

“Oh jeez – Cas – Cas, how in the hell did you get up there?”

He doesn’t even bother tempering his exasperation. He’d left them in a locked motel room, and yet somehow Dean had trailed him all the way to the library and Castiel had been scared up into a cliché. They must be magical, teleporting, genius animals.

Dean buffets him closer to the tree and he thinks maybe, just maybe, he had been so thrown by his brother’s mopey reaction to him leaving that he hadn’t locked the motel room door.

He smacks his forehead, anticipating a pink mark in the morning. At least he has bigger problems to distract him.

“Cas, you have to come down now. Come on.”

Castiel yowls and clings more firmly to his branch. Dean huffs, knocking into Sam’s knees. _Can you believe this guy?_

“I’m blaming you for this,” he informs his brother, as a tickle begins by his clavicle. He realises too late that Jack has sprung himself from his pocket and scuttled up his shoulder, down his arm and onto his hand, which is splayed against the tree. He starts climbing towards Castiel at a speed that astonishes Sam so thoroughly that he grabs at him too late.

“Dammit, Jack! Come back here!”

The mouse is a tawny blur, disappearing into the sparse foliage and earning Castiel’s grudging interest. Sam dithers for a moment as Dean barks, and stupidly casts around for footholds.

“Hey! Is that your cat?”

He swings around to see a balding man in his forties approach. He’s stocky, copious fat over ropey muscle, and he’s giving Sam such a filthy glare that he steps back automatically.

“Yes,” he replies, and hisses up the tree again. “Cas! Down here _now!_ ”

“My wife and I saw it earlier. We notified animal control.” The man advances, still radiating disgust. “It’s irresponsible to abandon pets like that, you know.”

“I didn’t,” Sam begins, but the man cuts him off, closer still and pink with anger.

“We’ve been watching it,” he spits. “Since you weren’t.”

Sam can see a stout woman dawdling by a Honda Civic across the road, and she gives him the finger. Twice in one day, Sam thinks. Not a record by any means, but still impressive.

“Look, I’m just here to get my cat –,”

“Not a chance, buddy,” boasts the man. “I’ve already called the authorities.” He then commits the fatal mistake of poking Sam, hard, in the chest.

Dean comes out of nowhere, or everywhere, clamping his jaws around the man’s arm with a snarl and putting all of his weight behind the attack. They fall as a unit onto the sidewalk, over a hundred pounds of black fury shaking the screeching do-gooder like a chew toy and eliciting an echoing scream from their audience across the road.

Sam jolts into action, wrapping his arms around Dean and hoisting him up with all his might; he falls on his ass as well, similarly held in place by a slavering dog, but all Dean does is lick him. He smells something tangy on his breath, and moans.

“Really, Dean?”

“I’m calling the police!” someone yells, and Sam struggles up, Dean helping him by shoving his head under his elbow. It doesn’t make him less inclined to fashion a very secure, very humiliating muzzle, but it does expedite the process of getting them the hell away from public scrutiny. He glances up as the man on the ground lets loose a tide of profanity, slowly dripping blood, and finds himself with a face full of white fur. Castiel slides into his arms as he coughs, Jack popping up between his flicking, pointed ears.

“Awesome,” he says, aware of how very not-awesome their situation is about to become. He grabs Dean by his scruff and lunges for the car, a mostly enraged suburbia roaring at him as they presumably search for their pitchforks.

They’re in the car and on the way to a motel on the other side of town within minutes. Sam keeps his fingers threaded through Dean’s fur, Castiel curls up in his lap, and Jack sprints from his shoulder down the length of Dean’s spine and back again the whole way, skipping like he’s never had more fun in his life.

It takes an hour to scout for an appropriately nondescript motel, then another two hours to circle back and retrieve their belongings from the old motel under the cover of darkness. Sam gets drive-thru White Castle on their return trip, and all but throws it at Dean and Castiel before firmly locking their room door and falling, face-first, on the bed.

He needs a druid, as proven by his research. More specifically, he needs to force a druid to turn his boisterous brother and his frightened angel and their energetic kid back into people, because he’s about two minutes away from shopping for harnesses and a cage. He swears, muffled, into his pillow, knowing he’s setting himself up to be blasted into the body of a Shetland pony or something just as awful, but what choice does he have? Improvising a solution or dabbling in witchcraft might make things worse, and they don’t have resources like Rowena, Charlie, or even Bobby for backup anymore. They only have each other.

His train of thought is redirected as he senses tiny claws in his scalp, the gait gentler than he’d come to expect. They track up to the pate of his skull and pace for a moment before nestling into his hair, and he wants to laugh, or make some jibe, like he knows Dean would if he were human. He’s too worn out.

Jack has barely stilled before something enormous pounces on Sam’s back, ejecting his sigh into a wheeze, and he turns his head to see Dean tilt into view upside down. His tongue falls out over his nose as he pants, and Sam can’t restrain a smile, even as Jack squeaks from the pillow in a manner that belies sincere upset.

“Sorry, little guy,” he says, propping himself on his elbows and holding out a forefinger for him to bite in recompense. “This sucks, huh?”

Jack gnaws feebly, and Sam figures he must be hungry. He probably should research rodent metabolisms on top of naturalistic rituals and trapping sigils, if he’s going to do this right.

“Just another day in the life,” he says to Jack, as Castiel leaps onto the bed as well, rubbing his head against Sam’s arm.

“I suppose that counts as an apology,” he intones, and scratches behind his ear. “You have to be the first angel to be afraid of heights, man.”

Castiel mewls in that odd, reverberating way again, and Sam allows that no angel has ever had to deal with being zipped inside a cat before, either.

Most likely.

He fritters away several hours on his laptop checking and double-checking his research, then he trawls occult message boards and chatrooms for any updates regarding cases of druid interactions (positive or otherwise), but the real deal is rare enough in modern America that few people even think they’re dangerous, let alone adversarial. The others sleep fitfully around the room as he works, chittering and rumbling in uncanny dreams, and Sam feels the pressure build, and build, and knows their lives begin and end with him now. It makes his stomach ripple unpleasantly.

Close to three or four in the morning the screen swims, as archive after archive blooms and dies away in a string of hundreds of tabs, useful, not useful, an ostensibly endless supply. He doesn’t notice Dean until his snout partially obscures the keypad, and when he goes to shift him away, Dean bites at his fingers.

“You’re the bane of my life today,” he levels at his brother, who loudly snorts. _Give me a break,_ or maybe _take a break,_ which he presumes is implied anyway when Dean uses a large paw to slam his laptop shut.

“If you cracked my screen I’m selling you.” Dean bounces on the bed so that he’s rocked up and down, and the exhaustion hits him, all at once. “Fine. _Fine!_ ”

“I’m getting really sick of talking to myself,” he adds, heaving himself up to get ready for bed. He takes care to close the door to the en suite bathroom, however, when the other three stare at him through the doorway like he’ll disappear if he goes out of sight. He decides, for peace of mind, to assume that’s how all pets behave.

He makes one last round of the room, feeding Jack some leftover seeds and raisins, and permitting Dean and Castiel to edge out into the thankfully empty parking lot to relieve themselves. He doesn’t want any more surprises when he wakes up.

He crashes into bed after setting the alarm for seven, firmly set on not drawing out this curse longer than he needs to. If he has to threaten a teenaged Greenpeace magician, he’d rather get it over with as soon as possible.

He’s descending into a blissfully unconscious state when something furry lands on his head.

“No,” he says, though it’s stifled. “Absolutely not, Dean.” He unearths himself, and is presented with that same droopy tongue and floppy-eared visage that had beguiled him earlier. It’s not adorable, he tells himself sternly, it’s trickery.

Dean whines, and nudges him to make space on the bed before burrowing into his side – and incidentally, taking up two thirds of the mattress, but Sam doesn’t have the patience to argue with a dog. Not until he gets more coffee in him.

Jack, who had been balled up inside a clean sock that Sam left lying on the bedside locker, scoots onto his pillow like he’s afraid of being left out. He stops jittering somewhere by the top of his head, and Sam just hopes he remembers not to stretch too strenuously in the morning.

Castiel materialises like a spirit at his feet, and picks his way artfully between him and Dean, all the way to the headboard, where he curls up neatly and starts purring. It resounds throughout the room like the ambiance of an old and comfortable underground bunker, and a puffy white tail comes to rest across his neck like further reassurance. Dean’s snuffling becomes snores, close and familiar, and if he closes his eyes it’s as if he’s at home. He relaxes slowly, within his family.

*

Dawn wakes him groggily, lazily, without much urgency, only a few minutes before his alarm. He discovers that in the night he had wrapped himself around Dean, who’s still snoring thunderously, his wet nose smeared against his neck, though he can barely see through the profusion of white fur that’s taken up residence across his eyes. He swipes away Castiel’s tail and gingerly feels around for Jack, locating him in a warm and restless clump just under his ear.

“All good?” he asks, husky from sleep, but Jack squirms in his hand, so he releases him back onto the bed, where he begins to zoom up and down, ranging over his blanketed legs and Dean’s hindquarters like they’re an obstacle course.

“Right,” he says, rolling his eyes, but he can’t deny that at the very least he’s a healthy little mouse. Even Dean has kept his appetite, and Castiel a moderate to inept grasp of his new physiology. The druid could have made their minds human copies, which would have turned them insane in the long run, he’s sure. She almost certainly thought she was taking the kindest route.

He sits up suddenly, which causes Castiel to jet across the floor with a petulant mewl, and Dean to lift his head once to sniff Sam, then fall back asleep.

“I’m not going to start a forest fire,” he announces, and shoots out of bed, brimming with hope.

He’s dressed within minutes, forgoing a shower in lieu of scrabbling inside his duffle bag for a slightly wilting tangerine and a browning avocado. Dean had mocked him mercilessly for taking such ‘snacks’ on the road – and he had included the air quotes – but Sam is nothing if not innovative at the eleventh hour. Even if it might prove to be their undoing, he can always say he tried.

Dean is studying him in concern as Jack scales his mountainous back, and he finds Castiel bathing himself, quite graphically, on the desk.

“All right, guys,” he says, nearly breathless with nerves. “I have a stupid plan.”

Dean barks, low enough to be subtle, but Sam can tell he’s intrigued. _That’s our Hannibal Smith, Mr Mastermind._ If dogs could grin he’d be beaming.

“We’re going back to Moshannon,” he says, “and I need you to stay with me and stay calm. That clear?”

Dean huffs, deflating a little, but Jack, now hanging off one of his velveteen ears, happily cheeps in the affirmative. Castiel makes a series of muffled sounds from where he’s busying himself, and Sam quickly decides it’s another statement of accord.

“Great,” he says. “Follow my lead.”

They’re on the road before the sun has had the chance to do much more than gild the tops of trees and slanting roofs, the town slowly stirring in their rear view mirror. Sam keeps his attention locked on the unravelling asphalt and the desperation that he’s shaped, so tentatively, into optimism. Jack unhelpfully chews on the flesh of the tangerine in his pocket, while Dean and Castiel yip at one another; Castiel has estimated that Sam’s lap is open real estate, and Dean is attempting – poorly – to bully him out of it.

By the time they roll up to the treeline that had spat them out the day before, Sam has begun to notice the unnatural way in which branches are dipping towards the car, and how leaves swirl into dust devils around the Impala, then their feet. He keeps Jack in his pocket and allows Castiel to hop up to his chest, draping himself over one shoulder.

“Stay alert,” he tells Dean, “but don’t attack anything, all right?”

Dean growls, consternated but following his lead. It’s a nice change, Sam thinks, and wonders if he’ll miss the bearlike companion should they manage not to die before sundown. Definitely not the licks, anyway.

They wend through the trees, which creak ominously as they pass. Clouds of flies gather as they approach and disperse in murmurations, and birds chatter consistently overhead at a volume that’s excessive no matter the time of day. Sam catches spurts of brown and black and grey as they move that could be anything from hares, to squirrels, to rats. What Sam is sure of is that they are being watched, which means it’s time for the show.

He finds the clearing that had been the site of their humiliation less than twenty-four hours ago, the oak tree unmarked and astoundingly ordinary; there’s no trace of the light or the runes that had branded it when they’d encountered it last. Castiel jumps down in a sprightly arc and Sam passes Jack onto his back so he can kneel, penitently, in the dirt. Dean stands guard as he produces the rather dented tangerine and the avocado, and he goes about clearing away detritus from the forest floor, using his nails to dig a shallow pit, into which he leaves the two fruits. He thinks he must look as pathetic as he feels.

Dean bristles suddenly and a voice emanates from the trees, or perhaps the breeze.

“What, _precisely_ , do you think you’re doing?”

Sam stands, surveying the thickets around them. “I’m making an offering. A truce.”

Dean presses into his side, but stays quiet. Castiel’s back arches and he hisses at what none of them can truly see.

“I missed you, before.” The voice undulates, like surround sound. “I should change your shape too.”

“I was hoping we could talk, instead,” calls Sam, swallowing. “I have a proposition.”

“From a hunter?” The breeze picks up, and an animal somewhere howls.

“My friends and I were rude, yesterday,” Sam pleads. “I want to make things right.”

There’s a rustling from the foliage several feet away, and two filthy bare feet precede a thin young woman that crouches to the ground before rising, sinuous and deliberate. She approaches slowly, in no great rush, her clothes rags and her hair a tangle that reaches her waist. She folds her arms and leans against the oak tree, expectant.

“Well?” she demands. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Dean barks, and Sam inches in front of him, wary of the way the druid’s eyes narrow. “That was just more rudeness,” she says sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Sam interjects, quickly. “We attacked you yesterday without trying to talk to you first. We were rash and it – it was wrong.”

The druid inspects her fingernails, crusted with mud. “Correct.”

“But,” he tacks on, “I’ve come to make amends. I know you’re alone out here.” He raises a hand as the druid clenches her fists, the presage of thunder belching miles away. “You’re the last of your family, right? The last vestige of a culture that you’re trying to preserve. I get that. My brother and I are legacies of a very old society, and we know better than anyone that it sucks to be on your own.”

Dean presses into his legs again, almost unbalancing him, and the druid tracks the movement.

“I think we can come to an arrangement. My friend Cas here –,” he nods to the cat that’s sitting on its haunches, unblinking, “– he knows protective wards that will keep humans out of any place you like, and I know spells that will make an area seem dangerous, or just unappealing to outsiders. It’s a different kind of magic, but – but I think it will be useful to you.” He indicates the half-buried fruit. “As you can see, I only want to see things, uh, flourish.”

The druid tugs idly at a mat in her hair. “And in return?”

“You change my friends back,” says Sam, his heart pounding, “and the other six people that I’m guessing you set loose in here as animals.”

The druid smiles, her teeth too long and pointed, and yellowing like ivory. “If I turn them back, all of you might try to kill me.”

“We won’t,” says Sam firmly. “And if we do try, we’re at your mercy in here anyway. Please. We can help each other.”

The druid glides forward, all the way up to him, ignoring Dean’s warning growl. She’s small, he thinks, very small to be wreaking so much havoc.

“I’m not alone,” she whispers, grime speckling her milky skin, gold flecking her wide, venom-green eyes. “In here I’m never alone, and you should remember that.”

“I will,” Sam says softly. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I just want those people to return to their families. I want – I want my family back, too.”

She nods, almost in understanding, and steps back.

“I’ll keep them,” she says, “I’ll keep my beasts until I get my protection.”

“And my brother? My friends?”

She tilts her head. “I like you,” she says, “so you get them, for now.” She wiggles her fingers in the air and thunder cracks overhead, loud as a gunshot.

“But no funny business,” she drawls. “Or they’re mine forever.”

“Deal,” Sam breathes in relief, and startles as Dean’s fur under his palm spikes into hair, and Jack yelps from a decidedly human throat as Castiel grumbles about the weight on his back –

*

“Cannot be _lieve_ this.”

“Dean.”

“I ate ungodly things, Sam. I sniffed butts. Then I had to trek naked through a forest in _October_ –,”

“Cas is almost done with the warding, okay? We can go home after we get those people out, and back into town.”

“Whatever. I should’ve ganked that smarmy little –,”

“ _Please_ don’t insult the druid in her forest. We’re already on thin ice. If you get turned into a mosquito I’m leaving you here.”

“Yeah right. You can’t stand not hearing my voice.”

“ _Ow_ , Dean. And… yeah, all right, maybe it got a little tough without you guys around. I’m used to the racket.”

“You’re going soft, Sammy.”

“You know you cuddled with me.”

“I’m not liable for any deeds I may or may not have committed under the influence.”

“The influence of… being a dog?”

“Yep. Those instincts are intense, man.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“I am. Jack’s eating grasshoppers on the ground, by the way.”

“What do you – _Jack!_ Christ – put them down, that’s unsanitary!”

“That’s irresponsible pet ownership, you know.”

“Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> * Castiel is a [Persian Longhair!](https://www.google.ie/search?q=persian+longhair+white+blue+eyes&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiFmve82ITpAhUKVhUIHdjRDKgQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=persian+longhair+white+blue+eyes&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoGCAAQCBAeULTCAViBzgFgmNEBaABwAHgAgAF6iAG7BpIBAzkuMZgBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1n&sclient=img&ei=a8KkXsW4Ioqs1fAP2KOzwAo&bih=625&biw=1366#imgrc=sqxJzVEAOcKSoM)
> 
> * Dean is a [Bernese Mountain dog!](https://www.google.ie/search?q=bernese+mountain+dog&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi49e6414TpAhWGQBUIHe60DIUQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=bernese+&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQARgAMgQIABBDMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAOgUIABCDAVCM3QtYweQLYK_vC2gAcAB4AIABqQGIAfcGkgEDMy41mAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWc&sclient=img&ei=VsGkXrjyJIaB1fAP7umyqAg&bih=625&biw=1366#imgrc=NWIfWunD-wo58M)
> 
> * Jack is a [common field mouse!](https://www.google.ie/search?q=field+mouse&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjUtIW414TpAhXbXhUIHTrPCykQ_AUoAXoECBkQAw&biw=1366&bih=625#imgrc=qOgpYlWv31AKdM) (but unique in my heart)


End file.
